The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. Due to the now ubiquitous nature of electronic communication devices, people of all ages and education levels are utilizing electronic devices to communicate with other individuals or contacts, receive services and/or share information, media and other content. One area in which there is a demand to increase ease of information transfer relates to the delivery of services to a user of a mobile terminal. The services may be in the form of a particular media or communication application desired by the user, such as a music player, a game player, an electronic book, short messages, email, content sharing, etc. The services may also be in the form of interactive applications in which the user may respond to a network device in order to perform a task or achieve a goal.
In some situations, mobile terminals may enhance the interaction that users have with their environment. Numerous use cases have developed around the concept of utilizing mobile terminals to enhance user interaction with their local area such as, for example, virtual tour guides and other mixed reality applications. Mixed reality involves the merging of real and virtual worlds. In some cases, mixed reality involves mixing real world image data with virtual objects in order to produce environments and visualizations in which physical and digital objects co-exist and potentially also interact in real time. Mixed reality includes augmented reality, which uses digital imagery to augment or add to real world imagery, and virtual reality, which simulates real world environments using computer simulation.
Augmented reality (AR) is a fast growing area, which is currently available on many mobile platforms (e.g., Symbian™, Android™, iPhone™, Windows Mobile™, etc.). The concept of augmented reality is to overlay graphics or information on a live video stream or a still image from a camera in a communication device. The graphics/information may be of any kind. In augmented reality graphics/information about the environment and objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of a view of the real world.
A common use of augmented reality is to overlay points of interests (POIs) on a video stream or still image. These POIs may be static information, like landmarks, for example or any information that may be geo-coded (e.g., contains a coordinate(s)). An example of the use of augmented reality can be seen in FIG. 1, where information provided by Wikipedia™ and tweets provided by Twitter™ are overlaid on a camera view of a communication device.
When a consumer presses one of the Wikipedia™ icons for example, the user may be presented with more information about an article associated with the selected icon. As an example, augmented reality may be used by consumers when they are in new places, and want to obtain information about things they see. By standing in front of a tourist attraction and pointing a camera at the attraction, the consumer can get information about the attraction.
A common problem associated with augmented reality applications is that the information that the AR applications may provide may become so crowded that it is unbeneficial and more of a disservice to the user. An example of this is shown in FIG. 2, where the information is so crowded in a camera view, that the user may not be able to utilize the information effectively.
For instance, the information may become so crowded that it may clutter the view on the camera causing the user to be unable to see the picture of the real world objects in the environment shown in the camera. When the information becomes crowded, it may also be very difficult for the user to identify which icon(s) of information belongs to a corresponding real world object(s) on the view of the camera. In this regard, some of the information on the view of the camera may not be visible, as it may be hidden behind other information. The hidden information shown on the view of the camera may actually be closer to the user in the real world environment than other information on the view of the camera that is unencumbered.
Currently, there are two approaches of conventionally dealing with the problem of cluttered displays in augmented reality. The first approach relates to allowing the user to select which information layers should be visible on the display based on the information that the user desires to see. Although this approach allows the user to completely turn on and turn off information layers, the drawback is that the user may not be able to choose within the information. For instance, even though the user is able to choose an information layer (e.g., a set of information to be provided by a service provider), the chosen information layer may still provide a large amount of information which may crowd the view of the camera.
The second approach relates to allowing consumers to select a fixed range/distance in which the user may want to see information (e.g., augmented reality information). For instance, the user may utilize a communication device to select a feature to view all augmented reality information within two kilometers of a current location. This approach has a drawback in that it may present undesirable effects in areas with less augmented reality information. For instance, there is a risk that the user selected a range/distance which is too small for any useful augmented reality information to show up on a view of the camera. For example, all or a substantial amount of the augmented reality information available for the current location may be outside of the range/distance selected by the user.
In view of the foregoing drawbacks, it may be desirable to provide an alternative mechanism by which to reduce the clutter of information provided to a communication device in an augmented reality environment.